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Litter Tray Training

keileyoneill

Young Bun
I've read loads on here about people who have 'toilet trained' bunnies. I would like to do this with my 2 rabbits but dont know where to start!
They are in seperate hutches, Gizmo is only 9 weeks so it isnt too bad but we got Doopy a rescue rabbit last week and I have never seen so much poo! :shock: Help...
 
The first step to toilet training is to provide each of them a toilet. Selecting a litter tray with a high back is a good idea as buns tend to perch on the edge. You can get corner litter trays or tray in alsort of sizes so have a shop around.

Next you need to work out which is your bunnies toilet corner, this tends to be one corner where they wee and leave the majority of poop. Scoop the contents of this corner into the tray and then clean out the hutch and put the tray in the toilet corner. With any luck the buns will continue using the corner and this time will be going in the tray.

Scoop up any loose poop and put it back in the tray.

Tam
 
Hi There Keileyoneill

I've heard and I know the good folks on here will verify if not correct but its much easier to litter train once bunnies have been neutered.

Buffy was always a bit "hit and miss" if you'll pardon the pun! when she was very young although she did try hard, she just ended up having lapses of concentration now and again which resulted in droppings everywhere. :roll:

Now shes brill and although we do still get a little accident every now and then which is mainly when she's really excited its food time she's now pretty well 95% litter trained. :) :)

Mind you - Our Rescue Bun Cagney who came from her Aunt Tracy at Rabbit and Guinea Pig Welfare was brilliantly litter trained right from the moment I had her - so whats your secret then Tracy?? :?:
 
My girl bunny who is neutured has a serious litter training problem, she just cant manage it. It is very annoying. I have recently bought a high sided litter tray but she still uses the tray AND the corner of her house. I dont know what I can do,
 
:wink: Hi Emma - Don't Worry there are loads of good folks on here to try and help

What do you have in her litter tray - have you got lots of nice things that will tempt her to stay in her tray to munch and poo - i.e lovely fresh hay - Cagney and Buffy get really excited every time I come any where near them with there favorite Hay and they will stay in their trays for 20 minutes munching together which normally results in the appropriate happenings the other end - if you get my drift.
 
Hi Emma,

Is the tray in the corner or is she using two seperate locations?

Tam
 
The tray is in the corner but ive tried moving it where she goes but inevitably once I move it left abit she then goes right a bit etc. My other bunny continues to be brilliant. They both are spayed but I wonder if it may be marking of some sort! girl bunny wee seems to be very different to male bunny wee :!:
 
I have 3 litter trays atm all the areas he uses just because in the short term emptying 3 litter trays is easier than having to clean up bunnie wee each am - I am just not a morning person. I also haven't had time to varnish/cover inside the run and knowing wee will be in contact with it each day made me nervous. There is another corner(on the floor) he also uses but that would have ment too much floor was turned to litter trays. I have been putting paper down on the floor and if he does anything out of the tray I take up the paper (or clean with kitchenroll) and put it in his litter tray. But to be honest he wees so much (and yet never drinks!) that I reallyy don't like to do that for very long. I usually change the litter trays once a day if there is any wee in them. I am worried that the paper in the litter trays and on the floor is a confusing message. I did want to not have it on the floor but I came in one am to find a puddle of wee so big it had gone out of his run area all over a bag of cat litter and also had bunnie foot prints leading away from it (think hes not going to get away with trying to blame the cats there). :shock:
I came in this am to find him in this litter tray eating the Timothy hay I got him yesterday, and no wee on the floor. Who said sometimes hes not a good boy :D Now two days in a row would be great one day I am thinking might be a fluke.
 
Emma, is it a case of the tray 'belongs' to your second bunny and your first is being careful to use a seperate place. Weeing near the tray might be her knowing she's meant to be going in the tray but also not wanting to wee on the other girls patch. Some of my past pairs have used the same area whilst others have wanted a place each.

Tam
 
I'll just call you sherlock from now on, that would make perfect sense. :D :D :D
Before they lived together, when I litter trained her she was perfect and never went over the edge. She makes big shows of submission to Brad all the time, good thinking ill get more litter trays so they can go in different places. Thanks so much
 
Keep persisting, it sounds like you're halfway there anyhow. Training does work it can take a little while. I only inherited Tweed 4 weeks ago and he is an adult un-neutered buck. The poos didn't bother me cos the floor is polished wood and they just roll about and I sweep them up, but the wees were terrible. After a while I noticed he was using one particular corner to wee and I just put the tray in there. I lined the tray with newspaper plus some paper towel I had used to mop up his last wee off the floor. Then I put a layer of soft chaff in it and some crisp fresh hay at one end and VOILA! The chaff makes it an inviting place to sit while he munches hay, and the surface remains dry and the pee runs down into the paper. Now he always uses the toilet, he pees AND poos in there. There are a couple of other toilets in strategic positions around the place, but he prefers the main one. There are still the odd few little peas rolling around the floor but that's OK.
 
Whats chaff? Is it like straw? I find all these hay/straw types very confusing what with first and second cutting, timothy, redigrass etc etc
 
Chaff or 'chop' is chopped up anything, such as plain hay, or lucerne hay, or oat straw. They just put the bale through a machine which chops it into pieces about 1/2 inch long and then it's bagged up and used for horse feeding mostly. It's only as good as the quality of the hay/straw used to make it. In my case it's easier to buy/transport and store than bales of hay. I buy plain meadow hay chaff and lucerne chaff in 20 kilo bags and feed it to the horse, the guinea pigs and now the rabbit too. I also keep a bale of the best hay I can get, for the little guys for the sake of their teeth. They enjoy long crisp hay. But HAY is a problem. I find it very hard to obtain best quality plain meadow hay that's not 50% red clover. We can only buy from local farmers and most of the pasture here is ryegrass/red clover. All hay grown in New Zealand is grown for cattle and sheep and nobody makes specialty hay, special mixtures or anything fancy. If you asked a farmer about timothy or browntop or whatever, he'd just laugh at you!
 
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